I was also diagnosed in 2012 and has surgery in 2013. I continue on meds and have many health issues still. I haven’t had a full recovery and dramatic weight loss or anything. I’m now starting to regret surgery as it has left me very limited in what I can do. I was far more mobile before. I miss my life. I’ve lost everything since having surgery!

I, too, was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor and subsequently had surgery to remove it. I still struggle day to day with many issues…word finding, comprehension, emotions. I also struggle with finding Cushings disease support groups in our area.

A simple test that measures free cortisol levels in saliva at midnight — called a midnight salivary cortisol test — showed good diagnostic performance for Cushing’s syndrome among a Chinese population, according to a recent study. The test was better than the standard urine free cortisol levels and may be an alternative for people with end-stage kidney disea […]

Your case is every similar to mine. I wasn’t a dancer but I did play multiple sports in high school and played college basketball. I saw doctor Yuen at Swedish as well and many more doctors as well. I have never got my case or my symptoms solved. Over 4 years of doctors and testing. They found I had a pituitary tumor and mildly high cortisol in my 24 hour Ur […]

Thanks for sharing your story. In February it will be 6 years since I’ve had my pituitary surgery. My health is constantly up and down as well. I was just wondering if you’re treated for depression or anxiety at all? Also, have you found any exercises or physical therapy to be helpful?

Jill wrote: 'In December 2004 my dad who had addison's for over 30 years had a triple bypass surgery 6 days before Christmas. The surgery was an amazine success and it was predicted he would be home before Christmas. Day 2 following surgery the hospital neglected to give him his steriods for his Addison's for 22 hours, which they were complete […]

A man with Cushing’s disease — caused by an adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH)-secreting pituitary adenoma — who later developed metastases in the central nervous system without Cushing’s recurrence, was successfully treated over eight years with radiation and chemotherapy, according to a case report.

Meta

Radiation therapy targeting the entire sella — the compartment where the pituitary gland resides at the base of the brain — is effective at controlling Cushing’s disease and should be considered for patients with suspected invasive adenoma tumors, a new study shows.

In patients with Cushing’s disease, excess cortisol levels are caused by a kind of pituitary tumor (adenoma) that secretes too much adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).

Removing the adenoma using the transsphenoidal approach — a minimally invasive procedure performed through the nose to remove pituitary tumors — remains the first-line treatment for patients with newly diagnosed Cushing’s syndrome. For patients who fail surgery and medical management, stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) may be used.

SRS is not a surgery in the traditional sense, as it does not require an incision. Instead, SRS uses many focused radiation beams to treat tumors and other problems in the brain, neck and other parts of the body.

While surgery may achieve very good remission rates in patients with an identifiable adenoma, as many as 50 percent of Cushing’s disease patients have no identifiable adenoma on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. In such cases, surgeons can opt for SRS targeting the entire sella, a procedure called whole-sellar SRS. However, the outcomes of whole-sellar SRS are not fully known.

Researchers conducted an international, retrospective study to analyze the outcomes of Cushing’s disease patients who received whole-sellar SRS.

The study enrolled 68 patients, including 52 who received the procedure for persistent disease, nine whose disease returned after surgery, and seven as their initial treatment.

Patients underwent a type of SRS known as gamma knife radiosurgery (GKRS), which uses small beams of gamma rays to target and treat brain tumors. They were then followed for a mean of 5.3 years.

Whole-sellar SRS was effective at controlling the disease, researchers found. In the five years after receiving the treatment, 75.9 percent of patients achieved a remission. Of those, 86% remained recurrence-free for five or more years.

The mean volume of area targeted using whole-sellar SRS was 2.6 cm3. Researchers discovered that treatment volumes greater than 1.6 cm3 were associated with a shorter time to remission, indicating that targeting a larger portion is more beneficial.

Also, statistical analysis revealed that a reduced dose of radiation was linked to recurrence, suggesting that a higher dose is more advantageous.

Regarding adverse events, 22.7% of patients who underwent whole-sellar SRS developed loss of one or more pituitary hormones.

Researchers also compared outcomes of patients who underwent whole-sellar SRS to those who received adenoma-targeted SRS, of which the latter involves irradiating only the tumor.

Interestingly, there were no differences in remission rate, time to remission, recurrence-free survival, or new endocrine disease development between both groups.

“Whole-sellar GKRS is effective at controlling [Cushing’s disease] when an adenoma is not clearly defined on imaging or when an invasive adenoma is suspected at the time of initial surgery,” the researchers concluded.